CyberBully: The Associate's Den
by Cuppa Char
Summary: Mike is being cyber-bullied. For a suitsmeme prompt
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Part of the fic dump. I have a few chapters of this, but it's still a wip.**

**Again for dome reason I have this head fandom that Harvey's office overlooks the associate area. Clearly I know this is no the case, but I'd like it to be. (it's also very convenient for Mike!Surveillance)...**

Cyber-Bully: The Associate's Den

Suitsmeme prompt: Mike gets cyberbullied and Harvey says he needs to toughen up. Then Harvey realizes how bad it is and goes off on the bullies.

Characters: Mike, Harvey, Kyle, Greg, assortment of others

Rating: T

Warning: Cyberbullying

disclaimer: Not mine, not for profit. No infringement intended.

**Chapter 1**

There's been something off about Mike for around two weeks now. He'd never really been _on_, of course, but he's more _off_ than usual. Jumpy, twitchy, rattled, irritable. He doesn't bounce around the office nearly as much as Harvey's accustomed to or exasperatedly grown to.

The kid, it seems, is getting sloppy too. He'd handed in briefs and case notes with glaringly obvious errors and oversights and on one occasion had got two by-laws mixed up. Not the usual standard the kid churned out daily.

Which is why Mike is in his office now and naturally having nothing to do with the glaringly obvious need to prod and poke the young associate out of some answers for said behaviour.

"Not your usual standard, rookie." Harvey says, flicking through the manilla folder on his desk.

Mike stands in front of the desk. His face is blank and he rolls his shoulder's in a half shrug gesture but comes across as indignant instead.

Harvey continues to thumb through the folder and raises a half brow at him.

"Forgetting which law goes with what? I expected more from you, Rain Man."

Less prodding and poking for some disclosure, more prodding a bear with a stick, it seemed because Mike suddenly sneers and shakes his head angrily before a stony look slides into place. Harvey can read people like books but Mike's getting better into sliding into blank and emotionless around him... he just needs to work on the expressions before and after.

"What do you expect, Harvey?" Mike forces out between clenched teeth. "I can't be a supper brain freak 24/7."

He ends up flinging a new folder – _actually_ _flinging_ _it_ – across the desk haphazardly in Harvey's direction, a flair of a tantrum evident. A couple of the loose paper's try and make a run for it in their trajectory and end up sliding into Harvey's lap, "Here's the new – _corrected_ – version. In an order you can understand. I even put post it notes on for you," he pauses and takes a breath that sounds a bit too shaky despite the determined and painted face he wore. "I recalculated the Simmond's finances. There's a discrepancy in their accounts that might mean leverage against their accountant."

A semblance of regret hangs heavy in the air because he'd be damned if that wasn't actual tears building in the kid's eyes, but as quick as they developed, they were blinked away and the hardened look to his face shifts into place.

"Mike..." Harvey starts but falls short when Mike turns on his heel quickly and storms out of his office, door banging heavily against fixtures.

By the time Harvey's extricated himself from behind his desk and makes to follow, Mike's already stormed past Donna's desk in a puppy-fied flappable anger.

Donna turns and raises both eyebrows and quirks her mouth in surprise.

"What did you do to the puppy?"

Harvey doesn't think he's done anything to the pup. He ends up watching him from his office just to make sure... or at least try and figure out the source for his uncharacteristic behaviour. He's dimmed the lights and tweaked the blinds so that it's not obvious he's standing and staring at his associate.

Donna comes in at the twenty minute mark with a fresh coffee.

"Ooh, are we staking out the pup?" she whispers. " Good thing I brought doughnuts too."

Harvey takes the offered cup of coffee from her and grimaces at the sound of it, never once taking his eyes off Mike. "Why are you whispering?"

She doesn't say anything, just smiles brightly and shrugs before turning her attention to the charge in front of them.

"Seriously," she says, blowing on her own coffee. "Anything to note."

Harvey was reluctant to admit that there wasn't. Mike had been at his desk for the entire time, head down and scribbling away into his notebook, occasional glance at the folders spread across his desk. Intermittently he would lift his head in the direction of another associate. A look passing across his face that Harvey couldn't quite place but unsettled him nonetheless. The kid is becoming increasingly rattled.

It's at the twenty-five minute mark that something stirs even deeper in Harvey.

Mike suddenly flinches and glances at his computer.

A hesitant hand clicks at his mouse.

An unmistakable paleness washes down his face.

He stands abruptly – chair roughly hitting the cubicle wall – and hands flex reflexively at his sides.

Harvey sees him whirl, anger fuelling movements. He can see that he's saying something – maybe even shouting with the way his chest is rising and falling and how his mouth turns up into a snarl – but he can't make out the words.

Harvey makes the snap decision to move – pushing past Donna and shoving himself out of the door. He needs an in and there was one opening up right now.

"... one of you was it?" He hears the tail of Mike's raised voice. Thankfully Louis and Jessica were in a meeting and would not hear it. "Which one of you?"

"I don't know what your talking about, Ross." Greg hisses at him as Harvey rounds the corner. "Sit down. Specter's here."

"Yeah, Mike," Kyle drawls. "Be a good boy and sit."

Mike's still standing though, shoulder's still rising and falling in hurried breath's, hand's still bunching and flexing out. But a second later he snaps to and quickly shuts down whatever was on his screen.

They've all shut up and Harvey regrets not going more stealth like. Instead he'd charged in way too early.

"What's going on?" Harvey says, voice raised with inquisition. He purposely eyes each and everyone one of the associates – maybe lingering on Harold for a second longer (because the kid was jittery as hell) – until they finally settle back on Mike.

There's a blotched flush over his face - seeping down his neck and reddening his cheeks – but does nothing to dampen down the still evident paleness there. His adam apple bops up and down several times and for a second he thinks the kid might loose his lunch (which was probably nothing to begin with) right there in cubicle monkey hell.

"Nothing." Mike says quietly. Harvey can hear the thinness to his voice.

_...Bullshit..._

Instead he offers a bemused smirk.

"Nothing?"

"Yeah, Harvey!... absolutely nothing!" Mike snaps harshly with a similar snarl to his face as he had offered his fellow associates and drops heavily into his chair, stabbing harshly at his keyboard. Harvey steps back and tilts his head in surprise. So the kid sometimes – _sometimes_ – snipes at him in the safe confines of the office. Most definitely not in public. And usually when said puppy was hungry or tired or stressed. But never, in a million years, in public. In front of carnivorous associates ready to eat their own.

The kid was throwing the gauntlet down. Only Harvey wasn't entirely sure what Mike wanted him to do with it

Someone wolf-whistles and another sing-songed the words _'Love Paradise Lost_'.

Harvey doesn't know who because he's still looking at Mike hard. Mike is still angrily abusing the key-board, the only thing visible on the screen an innocuous spreadsheet, and sucking in a breath that sounds too much like an aborted choke of a sob

Someone sniggers near-by. Harvey's head snaps up and scans the small crowd around him, eyes narrowing in pissed off anger.

"Get back to work!" he tells them icily.

Head's bob down quickly.

He turns and looks at his associate again, now fidgeting with a highlighter and shuffling papers around.

"You want something from me?" Mike says. His voice is quieter now and taken on an even more dangerous and thinner edge. He spins the highlighter between fingers and purses his lips as he scans, or least pretends to scan the papers in front of him. " 'Cause I have your cases and Louis' to finish."

Harvey stares at Mike for a second longer before straightening slightly and shaking his head.

"No, do what you have to do."

The highlighter stills between his fingers and silence surrounds them. Mike glances up at Harvey for just a second (and damn it, there's those god-damn tears again) before looking away and staring at some non de-script part of the cubicle wall and murmuring a shaky "Okay."

Harvey's already formulating some strategy in his head by the time he's made his way back to his office .There was no way he was going to let the gauntlet lie there and rust and break any further. Once he knew what he was dealing with, he'd pick it up, dust it off and hand it back. And then they would break the fucker open. Because there was always options, no matter what the situation.

"So," Donna asks, following him into his office and folding her arms. "From your face... and what I overheard, we don't have any answers. What's the plan?"

Harvey slides down into his own chair behind his desk and sighs.

"Get me someone from IT."

Donna waits for an explanation but doesn't get one.

"Phone or office?"

"Phone, for now," Harvey replies – picking up Mike's discarded folder from earlier and then dropping it, feeling useless but determined. Donna nods at him and turns to leave. "Make sure it's someone we can trust."

Donna turns and raises her eyebrow questionably.

"What am I? CIA?"

"C'mon Donna" Harvey smiles at her. "You know you have ninja skills when it comes to personnel."

Donna smiles too, although both are pale imitations of their usual banter, and flicks her hair.

"Don't you know it," she tells him from over shoulder.

Once Donna has gone, Harvey starts to put in to place the second part of his plan, which in hindsight is actually the first. And involves Louis. Because remote access of the ninja kind fails epically when the person in question is sat at the monitor.

xxx

tbc


	2. Chapter 2

**Standard disclaimers apply**

**Chapter 2**

_It didn't start straight away, not even after the mock trial_

_In fact, in hindsight, his encounter with Kyle in the break room should have been a cluing in. But, it didn't, not to Mike anyway. Which was was really stupid, and ironic, considering how fucking intelligent he was supposed to be._

_Kyle had sought him out, movements fuelled by anger, pushing Mike up against the wall and exposing his teeth in a sneer._

"_I don't get it," he says, mouth snarling in disgust. "I won."_

"_What?" Mike says distractedly, trying to dodge around him._

_Kyle's arm raises and blocks Mike's exit as he rests his palm against the wall that Mike is forced up against._

"_I won," Kyle repeats, his voice a breathless warning. He darts his face nearer with a thin, dangerous smile which widens when mike flinches. "I won, but Harvey still treats you like he's golden boy."_

_Mike lets a chuckle roll out of him which seems to anger him even more and he sees the palm, out of the corner of his eye, curl into a fist. _

"_What ever, Kyle," Mike says with a distinctly bored and unruffled tone. "Let me pass."_

_Mike makes to try and move again, pushing at the offending arm, but Kyle ends up leaning in, his other hand grabbing at his left arm to keep him in place, and for a second they are too close._

"_What do you have to do?"_

_Mike stiffens and freezes and plants himself back against the wall before anger starts seeping in._

"_Excuse me?"_

"_You heard me," Kyle says, refusing to move, breathing his venomous taunting all over him. "What. Do. You. Do? Anything to get up the ladder, right? Bottom up, huh?" he pauses and dryly chuckles at his words, "Literally."_

"_Let me pass, asshole."_

_But he doesn't, hand pinching, skin bruising until someone coughs from the doorway._

"_What's going on?"_

_Louis_

_Kyle straightens immediately, pulling Mike with him._

"_Nothing, Sir." Kyle says, patting Mike against the same arm he had just been abusing. "Mike just stumbled. I was giving him a hand."_

_Mike wanted nothing more than to grab the hand still resting against the suit material, feeling the slight touch, and break every single one of his fingers. But he wouldn't, because he was Mike Ross, after all._

_Louis didn't seem to believe them for a second, but he also didn't seem to care._

"_Whatever," Louis sneers at both of them and flicks his head towards the corridor. "Take your little dramas back to your desk and actually do some work."_

_Mike makes the first move because he can't stand to be near either one of them but has no choice to pause when Louis mutters "Ross."_

_Mike turns and looks at him._

"_I put some new files on your desk. Have them ready before you leave tonight."_

_That in itself was a loaded and leading order. Mike could very well see himself staying into the early hours of the morning._

_He saw Kyle roll his eyes at the injustice of it and Mike inwardly shook his head. He couldn't win either way... the other associates – Kyle especially – thought he was being treated differently because as Kyle had said, he was a 'golden boy' while Louis was just doing it out of spite and not wanting him to give Harvey's cases any due care or attention._

"_Already on it," Mike mutters._

_Voice, and body, thin with tension._

_xxx_

_It had actually started a few weeks, maybe even a month, after the confrontation with Kyle._

_At first it was a few anonymous emails and IM messages... they weren't too hateful or spiteful but they kept trying to remind him that he didn't belong there, that Harvey would get bored of him soon enough, that eventually Mike would realise he wouldn't be able to hack it._

_He coped with those... sure it was upsetting that the people he worked with thought of him like that... but he had reminded himself that he didn't actually like these people. The people he liked were the ones that mattered. Harvey and Donna. The rest of the Harvard drones could merrily sit there and think those things but all that really mattered was that he knew better. And Harvey._

_But somewhere along the line it shifted from innocuous and childish and actually became malicious._

_An email appeared in his in box_

_**WHAT DID YOU DO, GOLDEN BOY?**_

_This time, it wasn't Kyle, because thanks to Donna's intricate knowledge of knowing everything about everyone (but not Mike, not this, he made sure) he knew he was at this very minute in Louis office, Louis 'having his hide' for some irreparable error Kyle had made._

_And then he opened it._

_Pornographic and crude. _

_It had his face, someone else's body._

_It tells him it's gone viral._

_It was just the beginning._

_xxx_

_He'd casually dropped it in to conversation with Harvey – somewhere between loopholes and by-laws and a greasy pizza on the floor of Harvey's office – and he hadn't really been sure how to react to Harvey's disaffected response._

_Mike, though, could hardly blame him. He'd said it so casually, so hardly there, a light brush off that it was to be expected that Harvey didn't actually see it as a problem. Harvey, himself, appears to be distracted by the file he's staring into and the errant detail that is eluding both of them that could help them win the case they are currently working on._

"_Don't take it personally," Harvey tells him, scanning the paper."Everyone goes through hazing. It's a right of passage."_

"_Right," Mike nods, body and couch strewn with paperwork. "Of course, it's just... you know-"_

"_You can't take it?"_

_Mike startles at Harvey's choice of words, momentarily stung until he realises Harvey's not even thrown a glance in his direction, head down and reading._

"_I can take it," Mike snaps quickly and Harvey chooses that time to look up at him from his desk, and then says more softly- "... Just someone else, might not..."_

"_Do you want me to talk to them? Tell them to knock it off?"_

_Mike bristles. He doesn't want Harvey to tell them to knock it off. He wants to put a fist into Kyle's face, and anyone else who thinks the same, for implying he is sleeping his way to better things. He'd like it even better if Harvey bruised his hand doing it, but Harvey charging his way to his rescue – defending his honour – did nothing to shake off the image of him being Harvey's golden boy or shift the 'little bitch' status he seemed to have found himself in._

_Mike laughs loudly. Too loudly. Sardonically. A little bit unhinged._

_Harvey raises an eyebrow and quirks a confused smile on his lips. Mike knows Harvey's trying to read him and finding it hard because Mike is firing confusing signals. It leaves a bitter and warm feeling in his stomach, somewhat satisfied that he can still knock Harvey off his game._

_Mike waves him off dismissively and grins at him._

"_Why?" Mike asks, parroting words back at him. "It's just a little hazing. I've had worse."_

_Harvey's eye crinkle in confusion. Definitely not concern. Mike feels his hand tighten._

"_Okay..." Harvey says after a pause before his eyes drift downwards. "Got a issue with the Elkin's financial records?"_

"_Huh?" Mike asks, blinking._

_Harvey nods down towards Mike's lap and he follows it down to realise he has the file clasped tightly into curled fingers, the edge of the file bending and crinkling with the force._

"_Sorry." Mike says and releases the file onto his knees._

_Satisfied that his associate has stopped abusing potentially goldmine paperwork, Harvey nods and settles back against his chair and looks back down at his own paperwork._

"_Straighten it out," Harvey tells him, and for a second Mike thinks – no, he's sure – that he means him. "We got to present these in court."_

_xxx_

Harvey had managed to palm a stricken Mike off onto Louis to both their confusion.

"Why are you giving me Ross?" Louis asks suspiciously. "What are you trying pull?"

Harvey grins, despite his building worry, and can't resist baiting the junior partner.

"Just giving you a bit of style, Louis. You want the meeting to go successfully, _right_?"

He sees Louis tense reflexively and can't help but widen his grin and wag his eyebrows.

"Harvey..." Louis grinds out.

"-Okay, okay..." Harvey says, hands rising between them. "I just need him out of the way for a few hours. You can do that, right?"

Louis seems to settle a bit and rocks back on his feet, neck craning to see out through Harvey's office window. "Why? What's he done?"

"Nothing-" Harvey says, too quickly and immediately hates that Louis thinks that Mike's got himself into some type of trouble again. Of course, Harvey's cloak and dagger routine did nothing to say the opposite. "... Look, I just need him out of the way. You're always wanting him for your work and I'm giving him to you for free for the afternoon. Can't say fairer than that."

Louis doesn't blink at all and just looks at Harvey with his annoying and tilted stare. Normally this type of stare off involves vying for his associate's time.

"Paperwork, Harvey. Not very important meetings with very important judges..."

Harvey raises an eyebrow. He sees Donna hovering outside the office, tapping at her watch.

"Just take him, Louis," Harvey says softly, distractedly as he stares down at his blinking phone. When he looks back up again Louis has folded his arms and has a petulant look plastered across his face that says _'why should I?'_. Of all the times for Louis _not_ to want Mike.

"Louis, Louis, Louis..." Harvey says, shifting easily into smooth lawyer voice, "I need someone who can keep him in line. Someone who can play him. I need a player."

Louis straightens at this, lifting his tiny shoulders, and looks partially appraised until he realises – seconds too slow than any decent lawyer should be – that he's actually being played. And then he's looking at him with that pathetic little smug grin because he knows now that Harvey really needs him.

"Use him, don't use him-" Harvey says, wincing at the obvious imperativeness to his voice. "Just get him out of here for a few hours."

Louis' smugness grows and he unfolds his arms, dropping his hands on to his hips. He can't wait to get his preening ass out of his office so he can get on with the more important tasks and terminate feeding Louis ugly ego.

"Okay... you only had to ask," Louis says, smiling, preening all over him and his desk. He really needs to Louis-defumigate after this. "I could use him, he might be handy."

He doesn't offer a thanks and Louis doesn't ask for it.

He can practically hear Louis' voice from his open door – voice rich from a freshly stoked ego – telling his associate 'You're with me, Ross."

xxx

_tbc_


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Standard disclaimers apply**

**Chapter 3**

Harvey's at his desk, trying and failing to work through a case-file when Donna knocks on his open door. He looks up, surprised that she hadn't buzzed him.

She doesn't say anything and nods to a young man whose standing by her side. _('Benjamin' she tells him. 'He likes Mike, apparently.')_ By the grim look and hard-set to her eyes he figures she already knows it's bad.

"Okay," He announces, readying himself.

Donna moves back out of the office and Benjamin moves in. Donna hovers for a second – hesitant and fierce and smothering – and he shakes his head before looking pointedly at her desk. He trusted Donna completely, relied on her for so many things and so much more, but this wasn't about him. This was Mike and he wouldn't let anyone know until he'd a) knew what the hell he was dealing with and b) had it out with Mike.

He sees a visible scowl and a defeated roll of a sigh before she closes the door after them and heads for her desk. He makes a effort to make sure his intercom is not on and glances up to see Donna sitting, looking at him with a little shrug and a roll of the eyes.

"Mr Specter," Benjamin says, stepping forward with what looked like a disc in his hand. "You really have to look at this."

He hands the disc to him and Harvey palms it, staring at the small plain and non-descript piece of plastic. He's stalling, mentally preparing himself. He's not sure, right at this moment, if he wants to know, to know what has drastically changed his bounding puppy into a miserable faux-Harvard drone.

"What's on it?" he asks the IT expert, looking at him from across the desk and wonders what he is actually asking him.

He's not a lot older than Mike – almost, in this particular situation at least, out of depth, pale and uncomfortable, hands folded in his lap.

"Screen grabs, suspicious emails – mostly unknown senders, some from colleagues," Benjamin says with a shrug. A nervous hand rises and runs through his hair. "Personal details, links to external web-pages..."

Benjamin rolls to a stop but Harvey is left with a sinking feeling that there's more.

"It would just be easier to play it and see for yourself."

He takes a breath, hesitates and then takes the plunge.

The disc whirls to life. Benjamin's made it pretty easy to navigate – an impressive slide show of an alarming amount of bullying? Was that even the right word. It seemed so much more. Bullying was bad enough, but this... this was dark and twisted and soul destroying and Harvey didn't have a word for it.

_Emails after emails. Hundred's of instant messages_

**'You're out of your depth'**

**'Looser'**

**'Can't hack it, Rookie?'**

**'You lost'**

**'Pathetic'**

**'Useless'**

**'What does he see in you?...'**

**- WHAT DID YOU DO, GOLDEN BOY?**

Harvey stills, hand frozen over the mouse, at the pornographic images, Mike's face, contortions of bodies and a clear message that Mike would do anything.

That wasn't the worst though. There were months and months worth of harassment there. From what Harvey could see, it had started out in plain jealousy and related to Mike and work and then veered completely off track into a downward spiral that splintered across the web and covered many subjects – mainly horrendous and vile slurs that made Harvey pale and blood boil simultaneously. He felt his jaw lock and the tension rise, building from his clawed fingers, still grasping at the mouse, and winding it's way through him until it blanketed his body, engulfing his chest and pinching his jaw shut.

One of the pages – a screen grab – shows how Mike had followed a link to a facebook page. There's at least two dedicated to him and their(s) mutual dislike of him.

**Bash mike**

**I hate Mike**

Harvey doesn't know why – the kid was the stupidest inoffensive puppy-like individual you could meet. He hadn't felt this much anger in a long time and seriously felt like bashing someone – plunging his fist into whoever was responsible, one or hundred, and break their scrawny little necks.

There's many comments on these pages too – some, thankfully not dedicated to anti-Mike comments, and quite a few taking offence to the implication that Mike was anything other than the 'nicest guy you could meet' and 'shut this down, you sicko' – that reflect the emails and IM's from before. There's also several messages showing a small picture of Mike with his number, his _actual_ number (Harvey might not have Mike's memory, but he made sure to know _that_ number) and a 'Call me for a good fuck.'

Harvey felt the plastic grain and creak under his fingers, but it was the last few messages that really threw him into a tail-spin. He felt bile touch his lips as he swallowed the acidy reflux down.

**Why don't you just die?**

**Nobody will miss you**

**JUST DO IT, ALREADY!**

**I BET YOU CAN'T EVEN DO THAT RIGHT. DOWN, NOT ACROSS**

Harvey's completely stilled now and doesn't react. He's staring at the last four messages with a building incredulous anger. Someone is, not only telling Mike (vulnerable. exposed. innocent. validation seeking. praise needing. worldly wise and yet so young. his.) to kill himself, but how.

He feels his teeth crack against each other.

"There's another page," Benjamin murmurs from across the desk. "I tried to collect it in chronological order. The last page should be the last thing he looked at."

Harvey doesn't hesitate this time – hits the down button immediately – because he's gone past wondering if he really wants to know and is now fully in _'I have a damn right'_ territory, because someone is fucking with his associate and he's going to have their head on a platter.

Harvey really wants to vomit right now. The page is split into two, the screen black apart from two crude graphics halfway down the screen. Two gravestone's sit in their own boxes.

Mike's face is on one with a headstone description _'R.I.P. Mike Ross. Bastard Son'_. The other had what Harvey presumed was Mike's grandmother.

_'R.I.P. Grammy Ross. Grandmother & Guardian to a whore of a grandson.'_

He doesn't say anything, just continues staring at the screen and thinks back to Mike standing abruptly from his desk, breathing heavy and _'which one of you was it?'_

"Sir?" Benjamin asks softly and he looks up, blinking with bleary eyes.

He hasn't cried in many years, but he feels this is a moment that actually warrants a few tears (he doesn't, of course) because the kid has got under his skin and shifted everything like a ridiculous google tumble roll (strangely addictive, when you have the time).

"What do you call it?" he asks, still stuck on the right term. The term it deserves. Dark. Villainous. Nefarious. Despairing that someone could be so cruel to another? For what purpose? Entertainment. Natural jealousy. Survival of the fittest (if that was the case, he knew far better, more intelligent and superior ways to do so). No purpose other than they can?

Harvey hated to think what their purpose was, but he was left with a certainty that the firm's associates' were a pack of unpolished wolf's circling each other. There'd been victim's before, and Mike was surely not the last, but Harvey had never witnessed so much vindictiveness before.

"I think the term is cyber-bullying, Sir," Benjamin answers, uncertain what Harvey is asking of him.

Harvey releases the mouse, and feels the pulse in his thumb throb in response.

"I asked what _you_ call it?" Harvey repeats with a shake of his head.

"Disgusting," Benjamin answers without any hesitation. "It's... I don''t know – bad, really bad. I've had to do similar traces where I used to work. I've never seen it this bad-" he pauses and shrugs. "I don't have a word for it, so I'll settle on disgusting. What would _you_ call it?"

Harvey blinks at the throwback and he comes to realise that if this Benjamin likes Mike, Mike must have spent some time with him, and he's already seeing why they might get on because Harvey's seeing a little bit of his associate.

"Something more," he says simply. That much they both agree on.

xx

Harvey is angry... in fact he's fuming.

He'd sent Benjamin back to IT with strict instructions and would call him when he's ready. This left him pacing his office in a useless attempt to try and quell the waving tides of anger, each time he'd thought he'd breathed through it, it came crushing back and settling like acid across his chest. There was no point in sticking his head back into any of his case files. He was too blinded by the red mist building in him.

Donna had attempted to squeeze more information from him but he stonewalled her rather quickly. He ignored the brief look of hurt that flashed across her face in favour of concentrating on controlling the rage that was coiled throughout him, body tense and ready to strike... at anything. Best not his best assistant.

He sent her back to her desk and asked her to keep an eye out for his associate, and she nodded with reluctance and sloped off throwing worried frowns intermittently, but the building rage grew, causing him to pace. That pacing took him out of his office and in front of Donna's desk as he walked back and fourth, impatient and frustrated. Donna, for which he was grateful, seemed to accept his presence with a stoic, if not suspicious, silence but when he hesitatingly raised a hand to his mouth and rested a nail against his teeth ready to nibble, she raised a questionable eyebrow.

"Okay, now I'm really worried."

xxx

Harvey's still fuming. The fact that he doesn't yet know who is actually responsible was not helping and he's just about loosing the cool exterior, body thrumming, anger simmering – seconds away from full out boiling – control slowly slipping away like melting wax.

It's probably why he stalks over to Mike, when he finally does re-appear – heading towards his cubicle – and is pulling one of his ear buds out with one hand and attempting to dump his bag on the desk with his other when Harvey's hand encircles his elbow tightly and tugs.

Mike startles, the remaining ear bud falling from his ear and his bag tottering dangerously on the edge of the desk before falling. A few pens and a couple of papers fall in the process.

"My office. Now." he hisses quietly, leaning in close to his associate.

"Uh... okay..." he stumbles over his words and throws Harvey a confused look before waving at his downed messenger bag. "Let me just-"

"Leave it," Harvey practically growls into the kid's ear and Mike instantly stiffens and straightens. He looks at Harvey, clear confusion, worry and Harvey hates to admit, fear plastered across his face. He contemplates squeezing the rookie's elbow reassuringly or letting go, but wants to do neither, and so ends tightening his hold and pulling him away from the cubicle and curious glances from the other associates.

In fact, Harvey doesn't let go at all, and steers him out of the pen and to his office. As they pass Donna, he feels Mike hesitate and glance at her, who in return smiles reassuringly. Thank god that there's still someone who can at least offer that.

He practically has to drag the kid the last few feet. If Mike hadn't realised how mad Harvey's feeling, the slamming door does. He shakes out of Harvey's pinching hold and takes a step away, looking bewildered, first at the door – as if expecting the glass to splinter and shatter – and then at Harvey.

His face is still a mixture of confusion and fear. He takes one step closer to him and then changes his mind and steps back.

"Are you... mad at me?" Mike finally asks, voice hesitant and skipping. Harvey steps fully away, round the desk and paces in front of the glass. He doesn't know why he's taking it out on the kid... of he course he knows he's angry at someone, but he just can't help it bubbling over. Somewhere at the back of his mind he thinks he might be angry at himself for not seeing, but he pushes that aside and focuses on the fact that his idiotic associate has been putting up with a shit-load of pressure and ignoring it. Something that they might actually have something in common. It takes a second to realise that Mike's still talking. Rambling his way to salvation and Harvey has to switch gears to try and catch up. "... Is it about earlier? Because, if it is, I know I was out of line. Did I fuck up somewhere? I mean, more than usual."

Nervous laughter. A pleading face. Harvey thinks, after discussing the obvious, they seriously need to work on the kid's lack of confidence and need for praise and acknowledgement. A battle winning, top class lawyer, didn't go to court with those issues like hanging threads.

Mike seems to think his lack of response is an invitation to continue to plead his case, even though he hasn't a clue as to what he's fighting. "Is that why you sent me with Louis? As punishment?" Mike shudders, face wrinkling in disgust. "... Do you have any idea of the afternoon I've had, Harvey? The car crapped out on us and Louis has some pathological aversion to the subway, so we had to walk and I'm pretty sure he made some kid cry just by looking at her. What ever it is Harvey, I'll sort it. Just let-"

"Mike!" Harvey snaps at him and Mike's mouth shuts quickly.

"Seriously, Harvey-" Mike asks, worry evident in his voice, quiet and timid. "What's going on?"

Harvey stops his pacing, turns and faces Mike and stares hard, finally finding his voice.

"What's going on? What the fuck is going on?" he asks, incredulous and damn it, the stupid kid's unintentionally riding his anger like a wave. He grips the computer monitor with tight fingers and spins it. "This is what's going on."

He watches as Mike's face slowly looses all it's color.

"Shit."

Understatement of the year.

xxx

_tbc_


	4. Chapter 4

**Standard disclaimers apply**

**Part 3**

The room has filled with silence, buffeting around them, but doing nothing to soften the blows.

Mike seems completely taken aback by the revelation, and realisation that it's now out in the open, and is doing his best impression of a fish out of water; eyes darting around, mouth half open, the edge of words forming but never materialising.

"Mike?" Harvey demands of him.

"I... I... what...?" Mike stutters his way through Harvey's lasered gaze before his eyes squint suspiciously and his face hardens. "You had no right."

"I... what?" Harvey parrots back. Now it's his turn to be floundering and flabbergasted. Frustrated anger (at himself, at Mike, at whoever was responsible) turns incredulous and he fires it back. "Excuse me?"

"I said .." Mike says firmly. He moves forwards towards Harvey's desk but then appears to change tactics and shifts off to the side. He ends up, briefly looking out of the side of Harvey's window, enough time to take in a heaving breath before whirling around and facing him again. "What was it Harvey. Keeping tabs on me? Did you think you'd find something on me? What? Did you think I was in contact with Trevor?"

Mike shakes his head and suddenly decides to move off again, towards the door, apparently terminating their not-conversation, but stalls and glances at him with a raised hand, finger jabbing the air between them. "Fuck you, Harvey. Fuck you."

Harvey shifts around his desk with enough force that the move comes across as aggressive, almost violent, causing Mike to flinch and back up slightly, halfway through the already opened door

"I have every right," Harvey spits at him, rounding on him and grabbing at his arm. He manages to roughly pull him back in, shake his head in Donna's direction who was half raised from her desk – worry plastered across her face – and kick the door shut with a small flick of the foot.

Mike stumbles slightly and Harvey rights him a with a more gentle bracing hand, aware that he is coming across as over-bearing and hinging on violence. Once Mike is back to standing straight, he lets go and steps further away, allowing his associate some space to breath in.

"This has nothing to do with Trevor," Harvey says, levelling his voice out more evenly. He sees Mike's expression change as he processes the changing emotions, practically sees the cogs move behind his roaming eyes. Mike's breathing appears to try and match Harvey's (levelling) voice as one defence mechanism falls. "And you know that I know that."

Mike folds his arms across his chest (new mechanism falls into place, but Harvey knows the kid and is pretty sure he can break it down eventually) and levels his still angered eyes on to him, full of betrayal, hate and anger. Harvey thinks – hopes – that, along with Harvey's anger and confusion, it's misdirected.

"You went through my stuff, Harvey," he mutters. Any evidence of the fiestiness he'd heard before, had slowly drifted away, leaving a soft and wavering voice. "My emails! It's private. You had no right, no right at all."

"I had every right," Harvey repeats just as softly, aware his tone was dipping into a dangerously bewildered disappointment (which was the last thing he wanted the kid to feel). "When you started acting weird, I had a right. When your performance started to be lacklustre, I had a right. When you started acting like someone was kicking your ass, I had a right. And this morning's drama? Guess what? I had a god damn right."

Mike doesn't say anything to Harvey's quiet tirade, just shifts his gaze up and away, avoiding eye-contact. There's an obvious shake building within his smaller frame, one that Harvey is familiar with – building in waves and spreading out like a phoenix from the ashes – and hopes that it doesn't disintegrate into anything else.

" Christ, kid...why the hell didn't you tell me?" Harvey questions with a sigh and sags against the desk, buttocks resting against cool glass.

Mike's wilting frame turns rigid again, red flares across his checks and Harvey's feels the heat from the sudden, renewed anger before he even hears the words.

"I FUCKING DID!" He shouts, a semblance of a phoenix rising before loosing its momentum and Mike stumbles over to Harvey's couch and drops heavily into it.

Harvey's left in a surprised stupor – not because of the sudden unleash of anger or the fact that Donna and most probably half of the people milling around the offices could hear it too – but because with a sudden painful clarity, he realises the kid had. Told him. Amongst pizza-boxes and briefs and idiotic _'rights of passage.'_

_'I can take it.'_

_Files clasped abusively tight in trembling hands_

"_Straighten it out."_

Shit. Fucking god damn shit.

Anger, that deep down, he already had partly reserved for himself, internalised for the briefest of seconds – burned deep within – until automatic self-preservation won out and small words fell from wet lips, "I didn't realise it was that bad."

"It wasn't," he hears softly from the couch. Harvey can't see Mike's face because he has it buried in hands and so he doesn't know how to tread. There's still evidence of shaking as trembles shake out through his arms. Shit... and now the kid is trying to make _him _feel better. "I mean, it got worse. Besides... I kind of brushed it off really. How would you-"

"It was bad enough," Harvey says with a sigh, cutting Mike off, and joining his associate on the couch. "Haven't I taught you anything about being a closer. You tell the Jury what you want – _have to – _and make them believe. You make them listen."

Mike chuckles dryly and drops one hand to give Harvey a wry grin. Thankfully, there's no tears. Yet.

"Is everything you have to teach related to court etiquette?"

Despite not wanting to make light of the situation, Harvey manages to offer Mike a small grin back and nods, "Pretty much."

Their eyes linger, just for mere seconds, but it fills both of them with similar understandings and apologies. No words needed. Not for now, anyway.

Mike breaks the hold first and waves a hand in the direction of Harvey's desk.

"How did you manage all of that?"

"I had a little bit of help," Harvey admits slowly, unsure of Mike's reaction. "I needed someone from IT to remote access, Benjamin something..."

"Ben knows?" Mike's startled voice interrupts him, before throwing his head back into his hands.

"... which is why I had to get you to go with Louis."

"Oh, god! Louis knows about this?"

"No-" Harvey quickly reassures him with a shake of his head. "Just me and the IT guy. Donna knows something is wrong, but doesn't know what yet. She seems positive this IT kid is trustworthy."

"Ben," Mike automatically corrects him before continuing in a rush. "I trust him. I think, but maybe, you can have him sign something, just to make sure."

"Wait a minute," Harvey states, unsure where Mike was going with this. "If you want this Ben guy to sign something, I'll make it happen, but that doesn't mean I am going to ignore what's been happening."

"Harvey..." Mike starts, body tensing, limbs fidgeting in his distress.

"Mike-" Harvey cuts him off. "A serious issue has been raised here. I have to be seen to do something."

"No- no, no, no, shit, no," Mike panicky breathes out. He attempts to dart from the couch but Harvey entangles his hand around his arm and pulls him roughly back down.

"Mike-"

"Don't you see?" Mike says, refusing to let Harvey get a word in. "It will only make things worse. They already think I'm your _golden boy. _They'll just think that I came running to you."

"What is is this? High school?" Harvey asks with a dry chuckle before considering the situation again and who was most probably responsible. "On second thoughts..."

Mike attempts to pull away from Harvey's tight grasp but only manages to wriggle further into the couch. "I'm serious, Harvey."

"So, am I," Harvey says seriously while pushing Mike against the back of the couch with his free arm. "Even if you weren't my associate, and this was brought to my attention, I would have to deal with it and take it further. As a mentor, as a senior partner, as a responsible person..."

Mike shifts his head away and looks in the opposite direction.

"... but, just so you know, it also means something to me. You're my associate, all puppy analogies put aside, my responsibility and I have your back."

Mike turns and studies Harvey. This would be the time, in any other circumstance, that Mike would proclaim _'you so care'_, but his his face is too open and his eyes too soft and wet for their usual banter and simply utters 'Thanks' instead.

Harvey releases his hold over Mike, pushes up from the couch and ejects the disc from the computer. He turns and holds it out between between the tips of his fingers.

"Pearson Hardman are a law firm, Mike. We work within the confines of law, sometimes questionably, but generally within it. And this-" He says, waving the disc between them, "is definitely not within the law. I can't ignore it."

"Okay," Mike sighs, wipes a weary hand down his face and nods. "What now?"

"Now?" Harvey says, stepping forward, "now, I have to take this to Jessica and, unfortunately, Louis."

Mike nods again and folds his arms across his stomach. From this angle, with Harvey, looking down at him, he looks small and way too young.

"What do I do?" he asks, soft and defeated and lost.

"You stay here and work on some of your case files."

Harvey makes to move off out of his office and immediately feels Mike following.

"Where do you think you're going?" Harvey asks, turning to find Mike behind him.

"To get my bag and files." Mike responds straight away. Harvey doesn't want that, for one – he doesn't want any of the other associates (or whoever was responsible) to realise the game was up and secondly – he didn't want Mike walking back into their den, now knowing what they were capable of and most definitely not with the red-eyed world weariness that the kid seemed to be seeping with.

"Donna will get those," Harvey said firmly, shooing Mike back inside, while calling over his shoulder - "Donna, will you-?"

"Already done," She replied before magically pulling Mike's distinctive messenger bag and a wad of files from under her desk.

"Thanks," he tells her, collecting them from her desk before heading into his office and directing Mike back to the couch with a pointed finger. "Sit and stay. No matter the circumstances, you're not to leave this office. Got it?"

Mike jumps slightly as Harvey dumps the bag and files into his waiting lap.

"Ey Ey Captain," Mike says with a grunt and an eye roll but none of the flare.

xxx

_tbc_


End file.
